


The Greatest Flattery

by orphan_account



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reverse Falls, Dipper has tattoos, Human Bill Cipher, M/M, Will Cipher - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 16:21:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17026044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “It's not that bad you know, just barely a graze.” William pressed the swab deeper into his wound and he bit back a grunt.“‘Barely a graze’?” William softly hissed, he pulled the bloodied swab away and set it besides him. “Mason, you're going to need stitches. For goodness sake, you really need to take better care of yourself.”





	The Greatest Flattery

Mason breathed an annoyed sigh as William placed a large cotton swab covered in stinging antiseptic to a gash in his lower back. “It's not that bad you know, just barely a graze.” William pressed the swab deeper into his wound and he bit back a grunt.

“‘ _ Barely a graze’? _ ” William softly hissed, he pulled the bloodied swab away and set it besides him. “Mason, you're going to need stitches. For goodness sake, you really need to take better care of yourself.” The blue haired demon sighed and looked at the swirling mass of black ink tattoos that covered the human's shoulder blades and spread down his arms like vicious ivy. The tattoos ranged from incantations in old Latin to delicate and complex spirals and swirls. William leaned in and kissed the middle of Mason's shoulder blades.

Mason felt a slight tingle travel through his body when William's lips touched his skin. “I take perfectly good care of myself, it’s everything else that's trying to do me in.”

“Taking care of yourself includes taking precautions to guarantee your safety. I don't know what I would do if I lost you,” William removed his black, leather gloves and snapped his fingers. A single needle and a spool of dark thread appeared in a flash of violet flames. “And to be frank, I don't want to think about it.”

“It was just a hodag, William, I'm  _ fine.  _ Trust me, that creature looks far worse than I do.”

“I'm sure it does, but that's no excuse for you being careless and in turn causing harm to yourself.” William strung the needle and made a long leash of thread to use. He made a small puncture in Mason's skin and started to thread his wound back together.

Mason hissed and gnawed on his bottom lip. This wasn't the first time William had to sew him back together, and he knew that it would yet to be the last. He found it better if he just stayed silent while William lectured him, he learned from his past mistakes that if he tried to justify his actions and claim that he was fine that things would usually end in a tiff where William was angered at him for a week.

“You've just been getting into so much dangerous things as of late.. and I don't know what to do with you.” William sighed as he finished Mason's stitches. He whisked the needle and thread and bloodied swabs away with another flash of purple flames. “Like the mishap with the dragon and the fist fight with the unicorn."

Mason instinctively reached down to his calf and stroked it through his pant leg. The dragon had left him with a large, shiny burn and his legs singed of all their hair. He thought of the fight with the unicorn and lifted his head with a small grin because it had actually been quite fun. Slowly he turned around to face the demon.

“I know that you worry about me,” Mason spoke softly as he gently cupped William's cheek with one hand. He ran his thumb gently across William's cheek and marveled at it's softness. “I know that I may seem fragile and short lived to you because I am human and you're not.”

William opened his mouth to speak but Mason shushed him, “but despite all of that, you still let me go out and let me do things that I enjoy to do, despite how dangerous they might be.” He pressed a slow kiss to the demon's lips and then pulled away. “You let me do that because you care for me, it's that care that keeps me safe and brings me back from the edge although how beaten and battered I might be.”

William stayed quiet for a moment, his soft, un-gloved hands making their way around Mason. His fingers slowly traced the tattoos on the human's shoulders like an old familiar path. “But you must remember, if you were to die.. I- there wouldn't be anything that I could do for you.” He whispered.

“Then I just won't die then.” Mason said simply, pressing a quick kiss to William's jaw.

William gave Mason a small, sad smile but said nothing.

That sad smile sent a pang of pain through Mason's chest, he knew that William would never say what it meant. But he knew. He knew. So instead of having to look at that sad smile, Mason decided he would kiss it away.

He pressed quick, gentle kisses all over William's face and his neck finally provoking giggles from the demon. Mason loved the sound of William's laughs and giggles, they were almost like undiluted happiness. The pang in his chest went away and the smallest of smiles tugged at his lips.

William looked up at Mason with his singular blue eye and smiled, “you're an odd one Mason.”

“Is that an insult or a compliment?” Mason asked, his hand leaving William's cheek to run his fingers over the cold latch of William's eyepatch under his blue curls.

“Both,” William said giving Mason a gentle kiss.

“You're insufferable.”

“I could say the same thing about you.”

Mason rolled his eyes and unfastened the latch he had been fingering. Then he removed the dark eyepatch from William's face with a smile. “I do enjoy you without your patch, you know.” Mason studied William's now revealed, monochrome grey eye with relish.

“So you say,” William muttered quietly. He took ahold of Mason's hand and kissed it before holding it against his cheek.

“I truly do, there's just something about your eye that I love.”

A gentle heat crept onto William's face, “you flatter me.”

“William, I assure you, I do not flatter you enough.” Mason leaned in and kissed William. The demon kissed back.

When they parted there were soft smiles on the both of their faces, William leaned up and pressed his forehead under Mason's chin.

Mason's arms wrapped around William and held him close, he placed soft kisses unto William's blue curls.

“If you really do wish to flatter me, do you know what you could do?” William asked quietly.

“And what could that be?”

William looked up at Mason, “ask me to accompany you when you go out to attend to dangerous tasks. I know you rather have me at the manor, but if I could just be by your side- it would make me feel so much more assured with your safety.”

Mason hesitated, he enjoyed going out in the forest on his own. With William around it would be like having a babysitter, but- he saw the pleading look in the demon's eye. “I suppose.”

A smile graced William's lips and he leaned up to kiss Mason, “thank you. Truly, Mason, the greatest flattery is letting me be the one to protect you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking, theres so many HCs and art and fics of Dipper with a bunch of tattoos, but never Mason. So I thought I'd whip something up!


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